A documentation and review of limited time, special edition, or otherwise hard-to-find noms.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Turkey Hill Southern Lemon Pie

See those bottles in the background? This is my blog that describes what I do with them.

One of best things about ephemeral ice cream flavors is that they're often indicated loudly on the carton's lid! Look for that next time you're in the freezer aisle.

Turkey Hill has been known to throw out a lot of exciting new flavors, and this one follows suit as a fresh summery offering: Southern Lemon Pie.

The color is a bright, festive, and disturbingly artificial yellow, but that's where the intimidation stops. Stirred into the ice cream are bits of pie crust and marshmallow: the pie crust is just about perfect and manages to maintain some texture even though it's been soaking in cream; the marshmallow attempts to mimic meringue, I imagine, and while it's not perfect, its texture definitely invokes the traditional lemon pie's white topping.

But for me, the star of this show is the ice cream itself. The lemon flavoring present almost identically imitates lemon curd/custard. It's bright yet rich, and it makes me feel like a kid. But on top of this, Turkey Hill have gone the extra mile with texture. I'm not sure how much xantham gum and pectin normally play a role in ice cream products, but this one would indicate that it has more of the stuff than normal. The result is a thick, gummy texture that accurately portrays the mouth feel of lemon pie's curd/meringue duo. After my first bowl of this stuff, I swore that the formula included a bit of cream cheese to improve the richness and texture, but in reality it was the work of Turkey Hill's chemical magicians.